Willa Cather

The novel, My Antonia by Willa Cather is about a young immigrant girl and her experiences though life. Since Antonia is an immigrant, she has to mature quicker than the other townspeople. Considering she has to mature briefly, she learns copious life lessons. She has to learn that members of her society will try to take advantage of her trusting personality. In addition she learns that rising above challenges is how she will advance in life. Equally important she learns that she needs to work…

stronger. She would not ever let things get her down. She was persevere through out the book. Even I admired her outlook on life. She had many friends whom she was loyal to, and a bubbling personality that could warm a strangers heart. So of course Cather would admire…

Willa Cather moved to Nebraska in 1883, when she was only 9 years old. A year and a half later she moved to the small prairie city of Red Cloud. While there she had an attic room that she loved to read in. At sixteen she went to college. After attending the University of Nebraska she moved to Pittsburg. She became a big woman in American journalism, but quit when she started writing her American masterpieces. She wrote three masterpieces in five years, one being My Antonia. She was received the…

O Pioneers! is the first book of the renowned prairie trilogy written by Willa Cather, a Pulitzer Prize winning author. This book was published in 1913 and tells the fictional story of the life of a Swedish women named Alexandra Bergson. The story begins when Alexandra was a young woman as her father’s health was declining. The doctor sadly told the family that there was nothing he could do for their father and that he was to die soon. Before Mr. Bergson’s death he gathered his four children…

“Paul’s Case” written by Willa Cather, talks about a man struggling with his personality traits believing that he knows where he belongs, but his teachers and family members refuse to support his beliefs. Paul has a hard time with both interior and exterior problems, causing him to be a quite confusing character. From the standpoint of his teachers and family members, Paul seems irregular. From his perspective, however, he seems to misunderstand why they think such of him which will take him…

In Book II of “My Antonia” Cather begins to show the importance of women’s rights and the pressures and problems of marriage. Though these chapters Cather can be considered a progressive and pro-feminist. I found Book II related to many of the novels we have recently read such as “The Yellow Wall-Paper”, “The Other Two” and similar themes of naturalism and regional realism. In chapters 1 & 2 we really see Cather’s voice come out. We are told about Antonia and how by working the land she has…

I recently read a terrific book this year called Flora and Ulysses By: Kate DiCamillo. This book is a fantasy fiction, and won the John Newbery Award in 2014. The book is told from 3rd person point of view. Flora, the main character, inherited something strange on a late summer afternoon. Her Aunt had been given a Ulysses 2000x, some type of vacuum cleaner that was indoor and outdoor. They decided to give the vacuum cleaner a try outside, until “Poof. Fwump.” Before you know it Flora has a…

In Terry Tempest Williams work In Cahoots with the Coyote, Williams champions the work and life story of painter and environmentalist Georgia O’ Keeffe. Williams compares O’ Keeffe to a coyote—a trickster. Like the coyote, she knew the “art of perception is deception.” The vibrant and dramatic images of the desert she made deceived viewers across America into wanting to visit the desert, a place where few had wanted to go before. O’ Keeffe is described to have an extremely intimate…

In Cather’s book ‘My Antonia’, she writes through the eyes of Jim Burden. Cather, throughout the book, expresses her admiration for Antonia’s charisma and tenacity with Jim’s ongoing inquisition about Antonia. One characteristic that Jim writes about that expresses his admiration for Antonia, was her harmony with her friends and close acquaintances. Any person who got to know Antonia loved her willingness to work and care for the less fortunate. “I could not imagine Antonia’s living for a week…

Even though Jim is the narrator in this story, it quickly becomes evident that Antonia is the story’s protagonist even if she does not show up in the later half of the book. Jim’s actions and feelings in the story revolve around Antonia. You can tell that Jim fells nostalgic for the friendship that he and Antonia had together. Antonia is described as very beautiful and full of optimism despite the difficult things she has had to endure. Her tom boyish nature is one of the characteristics that…